But why hadn’t he phoned to say he was delayed? Even if his mobile wasn’t working, he could use a pay phone or work his charm on someone to borrow theirs. And if he didn’t have cash he could reverse the charges.
To break the monotony of going around in circles, Jo replayed David’s voicemail message from earlier that day and listened to every nuance in his voice, analysing everything he said and didn’t say. When that didn’t settle her mind, she looked at the last text message he had sent. It was even shorter than the one replying to Jo’s earlier message.
On train home.
Arrive Lime Street 7:10 p.m.
D x
He was rushing with his texts because his battery was low and his battery was low because it hadn’t been charged the night before. But if Jo hadn’t been sulking like a child, she would have made sure that it had a full battery. David relied on his wife’s obsession for detail to ensure that both of them were ready for anything.
But as time ticked by and it became less likely that David had been held up for some simple reason, Jo was anything but ready. As long as something too awful to contemplate hadn’t happened, and she prayed it hadn’t, then there was only one other explanation left.
David had chosen not to come home.
And if Jo was being perfectly honest, that was the real reason she hadn’t been prepared to pick up the landline and phone for help.
At eleven thirty, Jo’s urgent need to relieve herself forced her into action. She went upstairs to the bathroom as fast as she could and only just made it. The near miss made her angry with herself. She had become paralyzed by a fear of the unknown, compounded by the theories her mind was conjuring to fill the torturous gap in her knowledge. David was only a few hours late and there would be a rational explanation. She simply didn’t know what that was yet.
Rather than return downstairs to be held captive by the ticking of the clock, Jo slipped into the spare room they had made into a study. She sat at the desk, switched on the laptop and began browsing not only the rail network sites she had checked before, but local traffic and news reports that might mention disruptions or serious incidents. The search was fruitless, but enough of a distraction to have eased her anxiety a little. The reprieve, however, was short-lived and her stomach lurched the moment she walked back into the living room. Both hands of the clock were pointing north.
Jo paced the floor as she tried again to reach her husband. The automated voice had the same effect as someone scraping their fingernails down a blackboard and made her shudder. There was nothing else for it; she needed to hear a human voice.
She picked up the landline and dialled, only to be greeted by another automated voice not too dissimilar from the one that had been taunting her all night. A scream began to build at the back of her throat, tearing at her vocal chords as she listened to the answering machine message. She came close to releasing it when the message cut off.
‘Hello?’ asked a groggy but blessedly familiar voice.
‘I’m sorry, did I wake you?’ Jo whispered.
‘What’s wrong?’ Steph asked, ignoring the question and reacting instead to the unmistakeable catch of emotion in her sister’s voice.
‘I don’t know.’ The words had started off so strong but then quivered over trembling lips. ‘I don’t know where David is.’
‘What?’
‘He was supposed to be home at eight.’
There was a groan as Steph rolled out of bed. ‘What time is it now?’
‘Quarter past twelve.’
‘And he hasn’t been in touch to say—’
‘Nothing. I’ve been phoning him constantly but it’s going through to his voicemail.’
‘Oh.’
Jo bit her lip. It wasn’t the response she wanted to hear. She could already imagine the scenarios being played out in Steph’s mind; they had played out in her own on a continuous loop all evening. ‘I’m scared, Steph,’ she managed to say in a broken whisper. Her hand flew to her mouth but it was too late, the first sob had escaped. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision as she stared at the living room clock, its lethal shards blunted but not obscured.
‘There’ll be a reason.’
‘I know, I just wish I knew what it was and I hate to say it but right now I don’t even care how bad it is. I need to know.’
There was the sound of soft footfalls, the creak of floorboards and the occasional click of a light switch as Steph made her way downstairs. ‘It’ll be all right.’
‘Will it?’ Jo asked, preparing to grasp even the most tenuous thread of hope.
‘Have you thought about phoning the police … or the hospitals?’
Steph’s words were soft and gentle but they stabbed fear into Jo’s heart. ‘No, I don’t want to look like a complete idiot when David turns up alive and well.’
The pause that followed was excruciating. ‘Steph?’
‘Could your argument last night have been more serious than you thought? Have you checked his things?’ she said. ‘Is anything missing?’
It took a fraction of a second for Jo to catch up with Steph’s train of thought. She laughed nervously. ‘I think I would have noticed if he’d packed a suitcase before he left this morning,’ she said, immediately dismissing the theory, not because she didn’t think it possible but because it was perhaps the most plausible – and that terrified her. She glanced towards the stairs, measuring the need to check his closet against her fear of what she might find. She tried to corral her thoughts. ‘Do you think I should phone the police?’
‘Maybe. Do you want me to come round?’
‘No, Steph, it’s late and blowing a gale again outside. Besides, you’ve got work in the morning.’
‘It’s not as if I’ll be able to get back to sleep now.’
‘But you have Lauren to look after,’ Jo protested, even while hoping deep down that Steph might overrule her.
‘That’s what husbands are for.’
Steph didn’t need to be in the same room to know that Jo had flinched at the remark.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘It’s all right. I’m sure we’ll laugh about this tomorrow. Now please, go back to bed. Keep your phone under your pillow if you have to and I’ll call you as soon as he turns up. And he will,’ she added as if the words alone would make her husband materialize.
‘I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes when he does,’ Steph offered with forced cheeriness.
Left to her own devices, Jo stared at the armchair she had been glued to for most of the evening. She couldn’t sit and stare at the clock any more but needed to keep herself occupied. Unable to resist the urge a moment longer, she rushed back upstairs to satisfy herself that David’s clothes were still in the wardrobe. They were, but the sight of his things only made her long for him more. Desperate for any kind of reassurance, Jo slipped back into the study to check one more thing. When she couldn’t find what she was looking for, the theory she had hoped to dismiss took on a life of its own.
Jo went through every drawer and file, not only in the study but in every other possible hiding place. Her search for the missing article was methodical and she left the paperwork in a tidier state than she had found it, but by the time she reached the kitchen there was nowhere else to look. Refusing to think about what that might mean Jo began clearing away the uneaten dinner.
She carefully wrapped the dried-out steak